


Shared Bonds

by Resilur



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17696339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resilur/pseuds/Resilur
Summary: The bonds between us can take many forms. Some doors never really shut, even if you don't realize it at first.





	Shared Bonds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FaiaSakura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaiaSakura/gifts).



Within the Black Lion, it was an endless, all-encompassing void. Not empty – it was as though Shiro could feel the very heartbeat of the stars, every life and speck of dust throughout the whole expanse of space. It was simultaneously nothing and _everything_.

Closer to the Black Lion than ever before, he could feel just how alien its mind and nature were. But with their bond so strengthened, he also _understood_ it more.

Unfathomable as they were, he found he could now follow its thoughts in a way – and he could feel that the reverse was true, as well.

(After all, they were just as strange and alien to the Lions, themselves.)

They had all learned how to synch their thoughts through the paladin bond, but this was on a whole new level. It was beyond comprehension, and yet it was how Black understood things, and through it he now could, too.

\---

After returning him to a physical form, the Black Lion was left with a deep, aching emptiness. The others understood, of course. All of them had mourned before, bonds broken by their paladins’ deaths.

But the Black Lion was not mourning, and that was what was strange to them.

It knew that he was still here, even though it couldn’t feel him any longer. That alien concept of “being alive” that seemed so fundamental to these beings… it would have made no difference to Black in the past. The bond was gone, and that was all that mattered.

And yet, it wasn’t.

Instead, Black yearned for him to be in his cockpit, standing alongside its current paladin. The desire for physical closeness was strange, to some extent. Distance had never mattered to it before, after all; it was irrelevant to the bonds it was used to.

And yet it also made complete sense, in a way that the others accepted, despite how it confused them. The Black Lion _knew_ how their paladins – how Shiro – felt, now. It was important to _them_ , how they experienced bonds with others (not only their Lions, a foreign thought in and of itself). And that of course made it important to the Black Lion.

\---

Keith was a little surprised to see Shiro standing at the foot of the Black Lion. Their whole journey home, and even after they’d made it back to Earth, he’d felt like Shiro was avoiding it.

(He… didn’t like to think about what happened, himself – not either part of it.)

Pausing, he found himself hanging back off to the side, as if he’d be interrupting.

“I’m sorry,” he heard Shiro say at last, staring up into the Lion’s face. “I’ve been running away, and that hasn’t been fair to you. To either of us, really.”

Keith felt a curl of something from Black in response, and Shiro smiled, almost wistfully. “Yeah, I know. I get it, now.”

Confused by that exchange, Keith walked over, Shiro greeting him with a friendly nod. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just… clearing the air, I guess,” he said, looking somewhat wry.

Keith hesitated. He was pretty sure Shiro’s paladin bond was gone (and he refused to think about it. At least he could still feel Red). “You’re really good at reading it, aren’t you? It’s like you can tell what Black’s thinking.” The “still” went unsaid but obvious, and Keith almost winced.

Shiro didn’t seem bothered, though. Instead, he just looked thoughtful. When he spoke again, his voice was distant. “Maybe I do understand Black better, now. When I was – well.” (And there was the other part that Keith was absolutely not thinking about.) “It’s more that I’ve got a good guess, I think.”

He laughed slightly. “It’s not like I need a telepathic bond to tell what _you’re_ thinking, either.”

Keith tried to argue that, he really did, but ended up just giving him a disgruntled look, instead. Shiro chuckled again, proving his point.

I don’t feel like I know Black that well,” Keith admitted after a long moment.

Shiro raised an eyebrow at that. “Even after what you did on Sendak’s ship? You and the others have all managed to deepen your bonds that much; I think you can understand it more than you realize.”

Piloting Black with nothing but his mind and the paladin bond, merging to that extent… he couldn’t really find a way to describe it. But despite all that, he’d never felt like he could actually explain what the Lion was thinking.

“Not as much as you do, though,” he argued.

“I don’t think what I did was the most practical way to get to know your Lion better,” Shiro said dryly.

Shaking his head, he laid a reassuring hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Stop selling yourself short,” he said firmly, though not without kindness. “You’ve achieved a lot, and you need to stop dismissing it. Really, you’re just overthinking it too much. All you need to do is pay attention, and it’ll feel natural.”

He eyed the Black Lion speculatively. “And I suppose I should be taking my own advice, here.”

An affirming rumble came from Black, almost catching Keith off-guard. He could feel the weight of its gaze, despite the fact that it hadn’t physically moved at all.

“Yeah.” Keith reached out through the bond, feeling the swirl of not-quite-emotions that he couldn’t name, but could still comprehend on some level that he couldn’t actually explain.

It had always been so strange, the way they somehow made more sense the less he tried to understand – too alien to fit into words. _Overthinking it_ , he reminded himself, and tried to just let it come naturally. It still couldn’t really map to words, but it was obvious anyway that Black was… pleased? Something like that.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

\---

The Black Lion felt content as Keith and Shiro sat by its paws, conversing. It had never considered this method of communication in the past. It let out a pleased rumble, and Shiro gave it a look that could now recognize was shared amusement, even without a bond to feel it through. It took effort, to think that way, but it was worth it.

_Names_ were another strange thing. “Shiro,” “Keith,” “Zarkon,” and the other “Shiro,” as well… Simply meaningless sounds, except not so meaningless at all. A sound linked to identity. It had never really thought of how they communicated, previously. It had always been able to understand the ones who mattered through its bonds, whether directly or through the others.

But it saw now how different its own bonds were from what these beings typically formed amongst themselves. There were so many more kinds of connections than it had ever considered might exist. “Keith” and “Shiro” could not feel each other in the same manner it did, and yet that bond seemed no less strong for it.

Even without a paladin bond, it didn’t mean that he and Shiro were severed from each other.

_Friendship_ was yet another new concept, but a very appealing one.


End file.
